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Now Available! Other Lands Have Dreams: From Baghdad to Pekin Prison by Kathy Kelly Click Here to Order 3-time Nobel Peace Prize Nominee Kathy Kelly's Harrowing First-hand Account of Iraq Under the Squeeze of Sanctions and Missiles of Shock and Awe! Today's Stories August 2, 2005 Tim Wise The Faulty Logic of "Terrorist" Profiling August 1, 2005 Virginia Rodino Why Bono and Geldof Got It Wrong: War and Global Poverty are Linked Diana Barahona Return to Venezuela: Land Reform and Neighborhood Doctors Joshua Frank Gitmo's Kangaroo Courts: First Torture Them, Then Rig Their Trials Mike Whitney The Consolidation of Powers: Rubber Stamp Roberts Norm Dixon The Worst Terror Attacks in History Norman Solomon Operation Withdrawal Scam James Petras The Corruption of Lula's Regime   July 30 / 31, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Lost Nuclear Warheads Now in Iran? JoAnn Wypijewski Scenes and Silver Linings from Labor's Crack-Up: a Special Report from Chicago Sheldon Rampton War is Fun as Hell: the Video Games Recruiters Play Jack Z. Bratich Fingerprints of Power: a Summer of Double Super Secrecy Greg Moses How to Cool Your Heels in Texas When It's Late July Across the World Jordan Green From Woolworth to Wal-Mart: Economics and the Race Divide in a Southern City Patrick Cockburn Getting Out of Iraq: 5,000 US Troops Have Gone AWOL Brian Cloughley The Bush-Cheney Fixation on Iran Justin Taylor Harry Potter and the War on Terror Saul Landau Enhancements for the Imperial Life: Fashionism Takes Command! John Walsh Dems Field Another Pro-War Candidate: Meet Hack the Hawk Joshua Frank Color-Coded Justice: John Roberts's Racial Hang Up Ron Jacobs Who Needs Feminism? We Have Condi Rice! Fred Gardner The Ethan and Gavin Show John Chuckman Friedman on Terrorism: the Dumbest Story Ever Written Liaquat Ali Khan Lessons City Bombers Need to Learn from Newton and Donne Remi Kanazi Annexing Justice in Palestine Naveen Jaganathan The Gurgaon Riots Rock India Richard Heinberg Where is the Hirsch Peak Oil Report? Max Watts Francis Ona, the Napoleon of Mekamui Ben Tripp Write Your Own Editorial! Poets' Basement Whalen & Engel, Landau, Albert and Krieger   July 29, 2005 Cockburn / St. Clair Who's the Real Martyr? Judy Miller or Jim DeFede? P. Sainath The Class War in Gurgaon Niranjan Ramakrishnan How the West Was Lost: CAFTA and the Disassembling of America Dave Lindorff Marvelous Marvin Bush J.L. Chestnut, Jr. America's Racist Inventory: Oppression Breeds Violence Pat Williams Giving Away the Last Best Place Norman Solomon In Praise of Kevin Benderman: a Moral Leader of the Nation Goes to Prison Sen. Russ Feingold The Bad News About the Energy Bill July 28, 2005 Paul Craig Roberts Departing Iraq William S. Lind The Duke of Alba and George W. Bush Gilad Atzmon Blair the Camera Man Joshua Frank Passing CAFTA: Blame the Democrats Lila Rajiva Vision Mumbai Submerged Amina Mire Pigmentation and Empire: the Emerging Skin-Whitening Industry Website of the Day Gateway to Underground News   July 27, 2005 Roger Morris The Source Beyond Rove: Condoleezza Rice at the Center of the Plame Scandal Gary Leupp Is Iran Being Set Up? Paul Craig Roberts US Falling Behind Across the Board Jackie Corr Class War on the Ruby River: the Billionaire with His Foot in His Mouth Mike Whitney The Coming End of the Housing Bubble Dave Zirin Why Lance Armstrong Must Break with Bush Christopher Bradley Why I Have Trouble Reading the News Norman Solomon Thomas Friedman, Liberal Sadist? Website of the Day Stormin' Norman   July 26, 2005 Suren Pillay The Enemy Within: When the "Other" is One of "Us" JoAnn Wypijewski Fission and Fizzle in Chicago: SEIU and Teamsters Quit the AFL Patrick Cockburn Iraq: the Unwinnable War David Anderson When the Greatest Outrage is the Lack of Outrage: NYC's Subway Searches Joshua Frank Hillary Clinton: Outflanking Bush from the Right Lenni Brenner Biography as Wish-Fulfillment: Jefferson, Hitchens and Atheism David Swanson Nuking Native Land     July 25, 2005 Paul Craig Roberts China-Mart Takes Over M. Shahid Alam Terrorism: America Defines Its Targets Uri Avnery March of the Orange Shirts Stan Cox Kreationism in Kansas Norman Solomon "Wagging the Puppy" Ramzy Baroud London Bombings: Barbaric, But Not Unexpected Mickey Z. No Gun Ri: 55 Years Later Website of the Day The Birth of a Hummingbird in 15 Images     July 23 / 24, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Islamo-Anarchs or Islamo-Fascists? Tariq Ali The War Comes Home Robert Fisk Something Happened Dave Lindorff Return of the Academic Witch Hunts Ricardo Alarcón Kidnapping in Miami: the UN, the US and the Cuban 5 Col. Dan Smith Living in a Twilight Zone: Troop Strength, Recruitment and the Draft Brian Cloughley The Pentagon's China Hypocrisy Kevin Zeese Growing Republican Opposition to Iraq War Bill Quigley Harrowing Hours in Haiti Fred Gardner The Reverberations of Raich Rep. Ron Paul The Patriot Act is a Threat to Liberty Joshua Frank Framing Abortion: Gonadal Politics and the Democrats Shivali Tukdeo Project Mumbai Makeover: Casualties of Development Gilad Atzmon Blair's "Evil Ideology" James Petras Baghdad: Barbarism and Civilization (a Fiction) Ben Tripp When Being American Was Fun Poets' Basement Krieger, Louise, Buknatski, Albert and Engel Website of the Weekend Remember the West Memphis 3   July 22, 2005 Heather Gray Home Grown Axis of Evil: Corp. Agribusiness, the Occupation of Iraq and the Dred Scott Decision David Domke The American Press and Credibility Lance Selfa Battle of the Insiders: No Heroes in the Plame Leak Scandal JoAnn Wypijewski Is This Really an "Insurgency" to Shake Up the Labor Movement?   July 21, 2005 Rose Ann DeMoro The Top 10 Problems with the "Crisis" in the Labor Movement William Blum London: Another Casualty in the War on Terror J.L. Chestnut, Jr. Whites Need to Learn Something: Dixie is Everywhere Christopher Brauchli Strange Affairs: Liberals and Alberto Gonzales Joshua Frank Plame Blame Game: the 5 Ws Brian Concannon, Jr. Haiti's Elections: Time for a Reality Check Patrick Cockburn The True, Terrible State of Iraq and the Link to London Website of the Day Who Blew Up the Murrah Building?     July 20, 2005 Cockburn / St. Clair Judge Roberts: Business as Usual Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz Red Christmas Ray McGovern Did Dick Finger Valerie?: the Hand of Cheney Chris Floyd Judge Dread: John Roberts and the "Enemy Combatants" Uri Avnery "Silence is Filth" Dave Lindorff Westmoreland's Body Count Goes Up by One Norman Solomon Gen. Westmoreland's Death Wish Bill Quigley Travels in Haiti with a Wanted Priest       July 19, 2005 Tariq Ali An Isolated Regime John Ross Jihad Meets G-8 Davey D. More Clear Channel Censorship: "Don't F--K Around with Tha Police" Greg Weiher Muzzling Saddam: the Old Bait-and-Switch in Iraqi Jurisprudence Brian McKinlay An "Arse Licker" Goes to Washington: John Howard's Grand Tour Norman Solomon Nukes for India; Threats for Iran Dave Lindorff Get Back to Where We Once Belonged Bill Christison Bush's Itinerary: First Stop Syria, Next Stop Iran Joshua Frank Laura's Justice?: Meet Edith Brown Clement   July 18, 2005 Joshua Frank An Interview with Ward Churchill M. Shahid Alam A Muslim Problem: Did Thomas Friedman Flunk History? Jude Wanniski Memo to Patrick Fitzgerald Ron Jacobs A Weekend to Stop the War Mike Whitney The Straight Line Between Falluja and King's Cross Station William MacDougall From "Bring It On" to "London Can Take It" Seth Sandronsky Temporary Recovery: New Frontiers in Labor Flexibility Richard Lichtman The Consolations of George Lakoff Paul Craig Roberts Can Congressional Republicans End Bush's Wars? Website of the Weekend Novels of the Neo-Cons   July 15 / 17, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Don't You Dare Call It Treason Jeffrey St. Clair Sticky Fingers: the Making of Halliburton Paul Craig Roberts Economic Treason Harry Browne "What They Do to Us, They Will Do to You": Shell Oil in Mayo, Ireland Uri Davis, Ilan Pappe and Tamar Yaron A Warning from Israel Andrew Rubin End of the Enlightenment: an Open Letter to Stephen Plaut Patrick Cockburn Iraq's Ghost Battalions J.L. Chestnut, Jr. Changes in Selma: Standing Up to Racism in the South Fred Gardner A Professional Bust Christopher Brauchli An Olympic Feat: How to "Double" Aid with No New Money Chris Floyd The Great Iraq Oil Giveaway Ben Tripp The Dark Incontinent Col. Dan Smith General Abizaid, I'm Glad You Asked Jason Leopold What Did Rove Say and When Did He Say It? Jack Random Miller Time Norman Solomon War and Venture Capitalism George Ochenski Liberate Montana's Rivers: Come One, Come All! Website of the Weekend Vote for CounterPuncher David Vest     July 14, 2005 Jeffrey St. Clair Sticky Fingers: the Making of Halliburton Subcomandante Marcos This is What Will Do and How We Shall Do It: the Sixth Declaration of the Selva Lacandona Dave Lindorff No More Moral Relativism: the US is a Terrorist State Joshua Frank Rove Agency: Liberals and the CIA Jude Wanniski Those 8 Black Pages: What's the Real Story on Karl Rove? Dave Zirin Storming the Castle Kevin Zeese Exit Strategy: Within Reach? Robert Jensen War Myths and the Press Reza Fiyouzat A Worldwide Call to Free Akbar Ganji Carol Norris Governor Paranoid: Schwarzenegger Comes Unhinged Website of the Day Nate Osborn: Heroic Human Rights Activist and CounterPuncher   July 13, 2005 Brian Cloughley Cold Blooded Murders in Iraq George Galloway We Can't Separate the London Bombings from the Political Backdrop Carlos Fierro A Supreme Waste of Time Sarah Knopp Hate on the Border Norman Solomon "Isolated Pockets of Problems": the Fake Optimism of Washington's Warriors Mickey Z. Water on the Brain Jim Minick The Right Tree in the Right Place Pat Williams American Indian Education for All Andrew N. Rubin Life Behind the Wall: "We are No Longer Able to See the Sun Set" Website of the Day "London's Burning": the Mikey Mix     July 12, 2005 Laith al-Saud Voices of Resistance: an Interview with Dr. Mohammed al-Obaidi of Iraq's Peoples' Struggle Movement Kara N. Tina "This is How We Do It": Report from the Gleneagles Battlefield William A. Cook The London Bombings: Why Has It Come to This? Jack Bratich 2 Live Cruise: Tom Cruise v. Big Pharma Amina Mire The Problem with Speaking in the Name of Others Dick J. Reavis Lessons from the Christian Jihadists: the Virtues of Burning Crosses and Colored Smoke Kevin Zeese Depleted Uranium: States Take Action to Protect Their Vets Paul Craig Roberts No-Think Nation Website of the Day Coke Gags Indian Artist     July 9 / 11, 2005 Alexander Cockburn After the Bombings Uri Avnery War of the Colors in Israel Sheldon Rampton Blaming Galloway: Rhetoric vs. Reality in London Bill Christison Hiroshima's 60th Anniversary and Nukes in Iran: an Opportunity or Just More Hand-wringing from the Peace Movement? Robert Fisk Blair's Alliance with Bush Bombed Stephen Winspear Collateral Damage in London? Saul Landau Mission Accomplished: Iraq is Broken Behrooz Ghamari Thomas Friedman's Muslim Problem Karl Beitel False Promises and Real Debt Relief Brian Concannon, Jr. Throwing Gasoline on Haiti's Fires Fred Gardner Sentencing Season John Whitlow And What Does the Market Say? Niranjan Ramakrishnan The London Blasts: Who's Being Transformed, Them or Us? Lila Rajiva Witches and Bastards Laura Carlsen CAFTA: Deepening the Inequities Jackie Corr Ted Turner and Jiminy Cricket Dave Lindorff "My Brother Went Over There Gung Ho; Now He's Just Bitter" N. D. Jayaprakash Why the CIA Tried to Kill Chou En Lai at the Bandung Conference Seth Sandronsky Meet the "Truth Tour": Rightwing Radio Hosts Go to Iraq Norman Madarasz The Choking of Brazil's Worker Party Ben Tripp The Inevitability of George W. Bush Poets' Basement Louise, Albert, Landau, Davies and Engel Website of the Weekend The Mother of All Enemies Lists     July 8, 2005 Paul Craig Roberts Blowback Hits Britain: Londoners Pay Heavy Price for Blair's Deception Tariq Ali The London Bombings: Why They Happened Monica Benderman One Soldier's Fight to Legalize Morality Rick Jahnkow Beyond Opt-Out: the Counter-Recruitment Movement Christopher Brauchli Dear Vet: If You Want to Eat While You Recuperate, You Gotta Pay Extra Kim Peterson Bombs in the Underground: Terror Begats Terror Joshua Frank Leakers and Liars: Inching Toward Indictments? Norman Solomon Messages from the Carnage Website of the Day An Interview with Ray McGovern   July 7, 2005 Cockburn / St. Clair Judy Miller: the Luckiest Martyr John Walsh More Hawkish Than Bush: Dems in Full Battle Cry Mike Marqusee Message from London Gilad Atzmon London's Burning Nicole Colson Showdown at the Supreme Court Jack Random Judith Miller, Anti-Hero Norman Solomon Judith Miller, Drum Majorette for War Len Colodny Is Bob Woodward Still Protecting Al Haig? Cockburn / St. Clair Judy Miller: the Luckiest Martyr                                                             Hot Stories Alexander Cockburn Behold, the Head of a Neo-Con! Subcomandante Marcos The Death Train of the WTO Norman Finkelstein Hitchens as Model Apostate Steve Niva Israel's Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings? Dardagan, Slobodo and Williams CounterPunch Exclusive: 20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians Steve J.B. Prison Bitch Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber True Lies: the Use of Propaganda in the Iraq War Wendell Berry Small Destructions Add Up CounterPunch Wire WMD: Who Said What When Cindy Corrie A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter I Can't Hear From Gore Vidal The Erosion of the American Dream Francis Boyle Impeach Bush: A Draft Resolution Click Here for More Stories.     Subscribe Online

August 2, 2005 Be a Hero Demand That Johnny Come Home By RON JACOBS Recently, a young man who has been part of my extended family since he was four years old went into the Marines. I visited with him a couple weeks prior to his reporting date and asked him what he hoped would happen. Like many people his age, he was unclear except for the fact that he knew he would end up in Iraq or Kuwait sooner or later. When asked how he felt about that, he shrugged his shoulders as if to say he hadn't really sorted out his real feelings on the matter. His stepfather (my brother), who has great misgivings about the young man's decisions, told me that he thinks his stepson just wants someone else to think for him. He didn't say this in a mean manner, just as a statement of fact. Meanwhile, I have been following various threads on a half dozen newsgroups that are discussing the upcoming antiwar protests in September. While the newsgroups are dominated by subscribers who generally oppose the war, there seems to be a lot of confusion as to whether such protests are in the best interests of the troops in Iraq and other combat zones. Despite the very clear call to make the troops' lives safer by bringing them home, many of these liberal-minded folks wonder if this is the proper message of support. Of course, the more reactionary subscribers have no doubt about where they stand, stating in essence that the troops should get unqualified support no matter what they do. After all, if the troops aren't over there killing and dying, then who knows, the government might start the draft and send us. There seems to be a couple of issues involved here: the first is the biggest one and is very simple. If one supports the troops does that mean they support the war in all of its death, destruction and gore? The second issue is less obvious but also revolves around the men and women in uniform. It has something to do with the relief that many here in the occupying country feel that these men and women are doing our dirty work and taking the hits instead of us. This relief is part and parcel of the wanton ignorance our society feigns when it comes to acknowledging what our lifestyle extracts from the rest of humanity. Columnist Thomas Friedman addressed this back in 1999 when he unabashedly wrote in The New York Times Magazine: "The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist. McDonald's cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas. And the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley's technologies to flourish is called the US Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps." Now, I know the young man I referred to at the beginning of this piece didn't join the Marines to make the world safe for McDonald's. Indeed, his reasons have much more to do with the need to prove his manhood and adulthood. In addition, there is a bit of patriotism involved in his decision. He's been told ever since he can remember that the US is the greatest country in the world and, after the events of 911 it needed young men like him to keep it that way. Of course, his understanding of politics doesn't encourage him to think how putting on a uniform and going to Iraq to kill or die is going to keep the US great. Indeed, as I already wrote, most of his reasoning has little to do with politics or capitalism-he just wants to grow up and do something with his life and the recruiter convinced him that joining the Marines was the best way for him to do that. There seems to be a commonly held belief among many antiwar folks that most servicemen and women have been duped into serving or forced into the military for economic reasons. While the economics do play a huge part in many young people's decision, I believe it is a bit of a stretch to say that these folks have been duped. Their decision may be made without having all of the facts, but most of the young people who join the military are quite aware of the risks involved. Like people who smoke and chew tobacco, they know what they are getting into, generally speaking. This fact doesn't mean that recruiters don't lie and that the military doesn't use advertising methods that deceive and manipulate, because they do and it does. To see what I mean, just watch an NFL game on television or, even more obviously, take a look at the photos coming out of Bush's visit to the National Boy Scout Jamboree this past weekend-an event that had Bush encouraging boys in uniform to put on the uniform of the US Army while military recruiters worked the crowd. Then there are those who join the military because they want to kill for their country (and god). A friend of mine in Vermont who has been actively involved in antiwar activities since 911 has been thrown out of antiwar meetings and asked to leave protests because of his distaste for the military and the people who are in it. His distaste (that borders on hatred at times) stems from the fact that he was in the service in the 1990s and had a terrible time. Like my brother's stepson, part of the reason he joined the military was to "grow up." He ended up in boot camp and then in the infantry where he met men whose greatest thrill was hurting people and wishing for a war so they could kill somebody. Whether or not these men were this way before they joined the service I don't know. However, I will always remember a story a friend of mine once told me about boot camp. My friend, who is nearing 70, was in the service in the late 1950s and early 1960s. After boot camp he went to jump school because he wanted to be in the airborne. Now, my friend is a very independent and often ornery fellow. If the words "Don't tread on me" were written for one person in particular, they were written for him. Even so, he told me once over a beer that after he left boot camp he had no mind of his own. When someone of a higher rank told him to jump, he jumped. If they told him to get down and do a hundred pushups, he did a hundred pushups. He continued by saying that if he had been told to kill one person or a hundred he would have done so without so much as blinking an eye. Then he stated that, in retrospect, he was very happy that he had been in the service in between wars (Korea and Vietnam). Anyhow, my point is that even those who don't want to be killers will be turned into one in the service. Add to that those who believe that they are killing for god and/or country and are therefore exonerated from any guilt and you have a situation where one has to truly wonder how they can support the troops as long as they are in combat. How many soldiers are killing for their god is anyone's guess. However, if one recalls General Boykin's remarks calling the Muslim religion idolatry and the Iraqis as Satan, it's not a far jump for a Marine or GI to make the same claim, especially if they come from a conservative Christian background to begin with. While Christianity has always been part of the US military's culture, friends of mine who are in the service or recently retired tell me that never before has it been so rampant and even encouraged on many bases, with commanders allowing bible groups to use military facilities and even punishing those soldiers who do not attend these groups or other prayer sessions. A report put out last week by the Iraq Body Count project and the Oxford Research Group, stated that the war and occupation have produced almost 25,000 civilian deaths. Of these, 37 percent resulted from the actions of coalition forces, 36 percent from criminal activities, and 9 percent from insurgent action. Now, whether or not the actual numbers are accurate, the proportions tend to stay the same no matter what the source is for civilian casualty numbers. This means that the US military is doing most of the killing in Iraq. If one supports the troops without qualifications that is what they support. In addition, and more fundamentally, they are supporting the policy that put the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan in the first place. This means that they share the underlying assumption that the United States has the right to send its military anywhere in the world it wishes in order to maintain its current position in the world. Underlying that assumption is the assumption that the lives of people in those lands where the US troops are sent are less valuable than US lives and are therefore expendable in the name of US goodness. With all due respect to the soldiers who have been convinced otherwise, their cause is not noble. What they are doing in Iraq and Afghanistan is no different than what their predecessors did in Vietnam, Korea the Philippines, and the American Indian lands. They are not making the world safe for democracy or even for their fellow Americans. Their mission is not heroic, despite the various acts of individual heroism that occur daily in battle. The most heroic act must be undertaken here at home by those of us who sent them over there. It is time that we demand these men and women come home now. There is no timetable for withdrawal unless we organize people to get into the streets and demand that the troops be withdrawn. Ron Jacobs is author of The Way the Wind Blew: a history of the Weather Underground, which is just republished by Verso. Jacobs' essay on Big Bill Broonzy is featured in CounterPunch's new collection on music, art and sex, Serpents in the Garden. He can be reached at: ron05401@yahoo.com